it musn't get warm
by skidegate
Summary: It mustn't get warm, it mustn't get better or it'll all fall apart again. [Mildly Fandral/Hogun. Written for avengers-tables. Prompt:cold.]


**it mustn't get warm**

WSwirls

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**Summary: **it mustn't get warm, it mustn't get better or it'll all fall apart again.

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It's cold. Fandral tugs the sleeves of his jacket over his hands as if it's not a sixty gold piece coat, something he can afford to wreak and do away with as easily as his amour, and curses Hogun into a happy old age _(because some men prefer short, bloody lives and hate such things as contentment_). It was bad enough that he wandered off on his date and left Fandral spluttering apologies to her. But to walk out of the castle and into the winter night? Fandral shakes his head. Some days it would be easier to strangle Hogun rather than attempt to be his friend.

"Worse than Loki." he mutters to himself.

Aside from his voice the night is silent, still and untouched. The snow under his boots crunches with every step. A quick scan of the ground proves fruitless: there are no prints. If there ever were any the snow covered them within the fifteen minutes or so that it took Fandral to get away from the ball, making it nearly impossible to follow him. As if that wasn't a damn near impossible enough task as it was. Fandral tucks his hands into his arms for added warmth.

"Hogun!" he calls. "Where art thou, Hogun? Deny they gloominess and—"

"Enough."

The voice comes from above him and Fandral turns around, stepping back a few steps so that he can get a look up at the castle roof. There, among the mounds of glinting snow, is Hogun. His blue and black outfit stands out against the bright whiteness, but he isn't exactly making an effort to hide himself. Fandral raises his hand in greeting.

"Hello there, my friend. Pleasant roosting?" Hogun just looks at him, his face a stole slab without a hint of expression. Fandral isn't deterred. In the nine years he's known him Hogun hasn't be a particularly talkative fellow. It doesn't usually bother Fandral, who shrugs off Hogun's silences as easily as most warriors shrug off blows. He usually does enough talking for the both of them anyway. "Was the party not offering the right entertainment? No cracked skulls, or bloodied swords? I know it must be hard, but surely you could have suffered through it just _one _night."

"The entertainment was fine."

"Then why did you not stay?" Fandral asks.

"I prefer it here," Hogun replies dryly. "The view is better."

"You prefer the sight of the frozen skies and grounds to that of a ladies bosom? I fear I shall never understand you."

"Nor I you," says Hogun, fixing the other man with scathing look. "For there are no ladies out here in the cold, and yet here you stand whining about it."

Perhaps lesser man would have been wounded, but Fandral just offers a wide smile and rolls up his sleeves. "Ah. You have a point. But, if you are so certain, I shall attempt to see things from your perspective! Care to lend me a hand?"

Without waiting for an answer—and without really expecting any help—Fandral walks to the wall and searches for a hold in the stone. After just a few seconds, he can feel the cold biting into his fingers and bites back an oath. He _hates _the cold. It makes outfits hard to put together for one thing, and for another it does horrible things to one's appendages. A pity gloves aren't fashionable. Not his gloves, anyway. The kind it takes to wield a sword without getting blisters and calluses. He sighs theatrically and grabs a jagged stone, hoisting himself up. The next few stones are harder to find underneath the stone, and slippery too. His boot slides off of one and he cracks his knee against the hard surface. He better not be ruining his boots too. But why not, really? It's a night for ruining clothes. And not in the way which he likes to have his clothes ruined.

"Do feel free to help," he says. "Any time now would be good."

A soft sigh caries over the edge of the roof and then Hogun is there .The snow shifts around his boots and tumbles down onto Fandral, who shakes it out of his eyes and squints up at the other man. "You can't manage on your own?" Hogun asks. "How sad a day it is for Asgard, when one of its greatest warriors cannot do something as simple as this."

Fandral just dangles there stupidly for a second, too stunned by his harshness to know what to say. Hogun has never been nice. Even when Fandral first made his acquaintance Hogun was hard as marble, and he never really softened. He was always a little too distant a friend, a bit too harsh a teacher. Still, that was uncalled for, and Fandral recoils from the blow.

"Do you forget that we are _three _in number?" Fandral demands. "Whatever mood has taken over your mind, I implore you: shake it off."

"My past is not _dust_. I cannot simply rid myself of it. It haunts my every moment like a specter."

"Will you spend the rest of your life valuing comrades who have long fallen into their graves and become bones?"

"It's my duty to remember." Hogun says. He looks away, eyes gone dark with some memory. "There is no one else to mourn for them."

"You've mourned enough for everyone." says Fandral, voice soft. He lets go of the wall with one hand and reaches out. "I don't know what happened, but you can't life the rest of your life inside the past. You've got to let go."

Hogun doesn't know how to do that. He's spent years learning how to cling to the broken pieces of his past, how to lose, how to turn away because it mustn't get warm, it mustn't get better or it'll all fall apart again. It isn't as simple as letting go of a kite string. All the same, he thinks he just might want to try.

It starts by taking Fandral's hand.


End file.
